My '85 GT 7.5L

[droopie85gt]

Man, what a great time with your son, in spite of the gremlins. My son just turned 15 and got his permit. But in his words, a car is a car. He has no desires for anything other than something that will start and drive. I was ready to start building a car when I was 12!!! I did have a 5 yr older brother who got the 70 Maverick hand me down that had been in the family since new. He sure did piss mom and dad off when he started ripping the 200 out to put in a 289, but I helped and learned a lot.

For your speedo cable. Try one of the velcro closure heat sleeves. I think DEI makes one. I modded my 85 with Holley TBI and I mounted the ecu under the driver's seat. I ran the main harness out the tunnel and on top of the tranny. I wasn't sure how much heat it would see, so I bought one of those sleeves and wrapped the harness in it.

OR, go with an electric speedo. I have digital gauges and it just uses a later model sending unit with wires and no speedo cable!

Keep up the good work!

[7point5inafox]

Man, what a great time with your son, in spite of the gremlins. My son just turned 15 and got his permit. But in his words, a car is a car. He has no desires for anything other than something that will start and drive. I was ready to start building a car when I was 12!!! I did have a 5 yr older brother who got the 70 Maverick hand me down that had been in the family since new. He sure did piss mom and dad off when he started ripping the 200 out to put in a 289, but I helped and learned a lot.

For your speedo cable. Try one of the velcro closure heat sleeves. I think DEI makes one. I modded my 85 with Holley TBI and I mounted the ecu under the driver's seat. I ran the main harness out the tunnel and on top of the tranny. I wasn't sure how much heat it would see, so I bought one of those sleeves and wrapped the harness in it.

OR, go with an electric speedo. I have digital gauges and it just uses a later model sending unit with wires and no speedo cable!

Keep up the good work!

Thanks! I'll definitely check DEI out. I just gotta keep the old school gauges. I'm very fortunate my son has an interest. I have a few gearhead friends that have kids that have the car is a car attitude. Now he'll be lucky if he finds someone like his mother that puts up with the hobby.

[7point5inafox]

The starting issue is a thing of the past and I've moved on. I'm not going to call it fixed by any means but it is no longer a problem.

My new hurdle is the serpentine belt. This is doubly frustrating because this is nothing new. I originally made these brackets over 20 yrs ago and the only changes this time were to replace the water pump and finally having a p/s system that is able to retain its fluid. After the stretched belt was replaced on prom day with one a 1/2" shorter I've had this new problem. I thought I fixed it by making a stack of washer rig to attempt to move the pulley back a little and jimmying the pump what little it could be moved in the bracket. It looked good so I went for a few mile ride. There were no problems so I consider it done. Two days later my son and I decide everything is good to cruise the 2 local hangouts and maybe even shut the car off and stay and chat to some fellow car guys. I let him drive and we make it barely 3/4 of a mile and hear a ticking noise which I immediately knew was the belt shredding. As luck would have it we were only 500' from my brother's driveway so we pulled in to survey the situation. Yep, it took off the front groove of the belt and it's all wound around the alternator fan and pulley. Good thing we didn't go any further. I'm assuming its because of the increased tension the belt wants to walk more. The boy swears the car hates him. After removing the belt and unwinding the belt out of the alternator. I put what was left of the belt back on the rear most part of the pulley and drove it home. I'm going to take the pump out and use a real pulley installer to get that thing back a bit.

[xctasy]

I've studied the factory OEM sper systems at length.

The Serpentine belt walks when over tensioned when the ancialries are aluminum plate. Its not able to take the bending moment that steel can, and when it vibrates at certain periods in the rev range, it moves some. The factory adaptors plates to the A/C and power steering were often cast aluminum to combat this.

When Advance Enginering West and , then, Kaufmann Products in Downey, CA did these #8945 kits to the public, IIRC, they used steel exchange units.



Chris no longer does em, too busy with firearms training and golf and car racing. But if you are able redo your stock brakets in steel plate, you should be able to wind up the tension on a smaller belt okay. Steel plate won't vibrate an shift like aluminum plate does. As long as any welds have enough root fusion, you can make it any shape like your aluminum plate adaptors were. Its just the parts different to the 5.0 A/C and water pump drives that make the problems. The power steering just has to be in the same alignment when under load. The power steering pump is known to throw pullies because it takes a lot of eccentric loads from the engine. If you add mass to it, it makes it worse, but if you add stiffness to it as well as weight, you'll be fine. The 2.3 engineers had to do a lot of work on tuning the accessory drives back in the 1982 to 1988 T bird Turbo Coupe era, as the power steering pumps would go loose...after they fixed the alternators, the p/s was the weakest link.

The other option is a remote 1989 on wards 3.8 liter V6 Super Coupe style pump, which the Kiwi and Aussie V8 Mustang racers from 1984 to 1987 used from Mistubishi Starions and 2.6 liter D50 and Triton trucks. It takes the weight of the whole power steering unit away. Since Ford used Misubishi sourced gearboxes, engines and bits and bobs on there commerical pickups like the Ranger, some Explorers and the overseas B2600 Mazdas, the power steering pump is basicaly a Ford part anyway. They are found on , IIRC, Mopar K cars and junkyard 1979 to 1983 Four Eyed specialty cars with the 2.6 Silent Shaft engines. You can wind the crap outa them.

And with the lid on

http://i1215.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4ff46017.jpg

Gotta love Ford Engineering...

The same pump on the drivers side in the red anodised AN areoquip and paint



(factory ex Zakspeed 1984 Mustang 5.0 race car used extesnively in 84 to 87 New Zealand and Australian circut racing)


It just might hepl to lean on the 460 a little more without any issues. Its exactly where Ford headed when space was at a premium like it was on the 3.8 liter Tbird SuperCoupes





By the way, your work is an inspiration to us all. Well done!

[7point5inafox]

I've studied the factory OEM sper systems at length.

The Serpentine belt walks when over tensioned when the ancialries are aluminum plate. Its not able to take the bending moment that steel can, and when it vibrates at certain periods in the rev range, it moves some. The factory adaptors plates to the A/C and power steering were often cast aluminum to combat this.

When Advance Enginering West and , then, Kaufmann Products in Downey, CA did these #8945 kits to the public, IIRC, they used steel exchange units.

Chris no longer does em, too busy with firearms training and golf and car racing. But if you redo your stock brakets in steel plate, you should be able to wind up the tension on a smaller belt okay.

By the way, your work is an inspiration to us all. Well done!

Wow, did you ever have to dig deep for that pic! These plates were the first set I made and I did use steel. I got it for free but it took forever to cut and once these were done I swore never again. A sawz-all, a grinder and a drill press was all that I had. Once there were a few people interested in buying the plates I had to start looking for a source to buy 1/2" aluminum or it wouldn't be worth doing. I could see some shifting being possible if the holes were kinda sloppy so I drilled out the 3 alt bracket holes to use 7/16" bolts. I was able to reuse that long stud the goes directly into the block that goes thru the upper power steering bolt hole. This thing was flawless for over 30,000 miles so I'm sure it'll prove to be my incompetence for not pressing the pulley on far enough when installing it on the new pump.

[xctasy]

Ah, cool. Way to go. Lookes like you've got it sorted then.


No problems finding the photos...I did all the research for another serpentine project last year on my 81 Mustang, and saw that on space limited or 6500 plus rpm race installs, thats what everyone was doing with the power steering pumps.


Ford really aced the class on the whole V8 serp set up's.

Nice you can use the stock FoMoCo power steering pump. and not have to put any of it to the scalpel.


The 460 is such a great, care free engine. It seems Ford made the Fox just for it, so much arm room campared to the crap fight fitting one to a 64 to 73 Mustang.

[7point5inafox]

Ah, cool. Way to go. Lookes like you've got it sorted then.


No problems finding the photos...I did all the research for another serpentine project last year on my 81 Mustang, and saw that on space limited or 6500 plus rpm race installs, thats what everyone was doing with the power steering pumps.


Ford really aced the class on the whole V8 serp set up's.

Nice you can use the stock FoMoCo power steering pump. and not have to put any of it to the scalpel.


The 460 is such a great, care free engine. It seems Ford made the Fox just for it, so much arm room campared to the crap fight fitting one to a 64 to 73 Mustang.

Thanks, I hope I can be an inspiration to someone. I know I use other people for that constantly.

For sure the fit of these motors in there isn't bad at all. I'd rather change the plugs in this thing over my original smogged out '89 GT any day.

[7point5inafox]

Well, I think the belt issue is behind me. Bummer it took a $38 belt for me to learn I shoulda paid closer attention to where the pulley was located on the shaft. In the grand scheme of things, there's a bunch of $38 receipts for this car I've completely forgotten about so what's one more?

Yesterday was an awesome day. We were down to just 2 full days of school left for him to be able to take it for his classmates and shop teacher to see. He'd been talking about it since we started the redo in 10th grade so I'm sure some were skeptical it even existed. Other than awkwardly using 2 hands for the reverse lockout on the shifter he seems to have it all figured out. Eventually, he'll smooth that out I'm sure. He got his parking pass transferred and they were ready to go. My daughter thought I was insane when I told her riding shotgun came with great responsibilities also. You can't lean against the door bar if the pins not in or you may mark the door panel and make sure you don't slam the seat belt in the door jamb if it retracts slowly due to dragging on the roll bar padding. The eye rolling I got meant she was at least listening. I got a text 10 min later that the car was in the parking lot. Double bonus for me was his friend who parks beside him is away for a state track meet so he was able to take up 2 spaces! The highlight of the day was when I got the text "We made it home, it all went great, everyone thought is was sick. Thanks Dad"

If there was any disappointment yesterday it was not making it to this huge church cruise that's about an hr away from me. I had full intentions of knocking off work a few hrs early and seeing if I could get there around 3 with all the retired guys to snag one of the shady parking spots. Unfortunately I was on my way home at 5:30 and debating if it was too late to go. Even though the parking lot is huge, it was so nice a day, I'm sure I woulda been parked by the dumpster. That's happened before, plus there's one there every Fri, so I decided to call it a night while I was ahead.

[7point5inafox]

Boy, it's been nuts around here the past 6 weeks. We've done some cruising and have been wanting to get it to a racetrack once again. We were aiming for Fun Ford Reloaded last weekend at Norwalk. Those Ford events were definitely some the highlights of my summers as it was and this year it was only $1 for the weekend, can't beat that! I always went for all 3 days and would pit beside friends that I used to race with around here until they moved for work. It was a guaranteed great time every year. This year was no different except I didn't decide to go soon enough so missed a day and a half of hanging out with those old friends. Even as I washed the car I hadn't decided to go for sure until I got an offer to take my friend's truck and trailer. Now I gotta go.

[JTurbo]

Sweet. Have a great time and post lots of pics.

[dk5_cobra]

Heck yeah. Such a cool thread/story

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[SVTKID92]

What a bad ass car. My dad had a 79 (or 82 i cant remember at the moment) coupe with a big block 460 in it. Car was actually featured in MMFF back in the mid 90's. But I love this build, honestly inspired me to find another fox and get going. Keep up the good work.

[7point5inafox]

Sweet. Have a great time and post lots of pics.

Heck yeah. Such a cool thread/story

What a bad ass car. My dad had a 79 (or 82 i cant remember at the moment) coupe with a big block 460 in it. Car was actually featured in MMFF back in the mid 90's. But I love this build, honestly inspired me to find another fox and get going. Keep up the good work.

Thanks very much guys!! I've had a ton of fun building this thing, first time with tons of help from my brother and this time my son lending a helping hand, but I'm ready to enjoy using it as much as possible.

I don't mind paying the inspiration forward because I've gotten a bunch from people on this site, dk5_cobra being one of them. Hopefully you'll find that fox you're looking for!

[magnum517]

Awesome car and thread! Have fun at the event!! Look forward to reading about it.


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[7point5inafox]

Awesome car and thread! Have fun at the event!! Look forward to reading about it.

Thanks magnum! Unfortunately, I didn't leave til 5:30 Sat evening so my pic taking was limited to late Sat night and Sun which was a bummer because a lot of people either didn't hang around at all or were gone as the 1st round ended. This is my friend's bad ass Fairmont. It runs 9.80's with a naturally aspirated 408 Windsor. Since there was no point in unloading the car til the morning I just grabbed a chair and we started playing catch up. I was there about 5 min and realized I should've been there 1st thing Fri a.m.

[magnum517]

That's a bummer. Nice Fairmont! Wicked!


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[7point5inafox]

I was super nervous not knowing how this thing was going to run since I really hadn't beat on the car since it's been done. My best hope for the weekend would be running an 11.99 and then being able to drive it back onto the trailer. It was always a very consistent 12.0 to 12.10 car and would dip into 11.9's in cooler weather. I hoped the new Dynomax mufflers along with those 2 header tubes no longer being flat that I could make an improvement. The weather was definitely not cool, mid 80's from late morning on. I'm not going to lie, I would've been disappointed with anything in the 12.0's but I never would've considered it a waste of a weekend. I decided to run in the street class so I wouldn't look ridiculous if things didn't go exactly as planned.

The first and only time trial pass was obviously going to be the most nerve wracking. I only lowered the air pressure to 19#'s because I had no idea how this thing would handle at 100 mph let alone with low air pressure. I also had to make sure the big fuel pump was on and remember how that Quarter Stick shifter functioned. I did find out the new master cylinder makes the line lock seem to work so much better than before. I was looking out the corner of my eye for the shift light but it never came on, no idea why? Panic set in when I didn't see it and I short shifted into 3rd. Car ran perfectly smooth the whole way to a 12.18 @ 112.2 mph. That was very disappointing but I knew there were definite improvements the made easily. I hoped the 3.70's would help my 60' times because this thing always left like a school bus but it didn't make any difference. It was a sluggish 1.70 but it didn't feel like it spun so I'm sticking with the 19#'s. When I reached for my time slip I was asked if it was possible sand would have been coming out from under my car? I told him I was certain of it.

I had no idea what to dial but knew it would be faster than before so I scribbled a 12.11 on the window and went to the line. The launch was great but I had to shift using the in dash tach. I passed the slower car I was racing by halftrack so I backed out and cruised to a victory. I figured this time slip was gonna be useless, not so. Even though my 60' slowed to 1.740, I knocked off over 2 tenths off the 1/8 mile and gained 3 mph! I was going 91.61 at halftrack and finished at 92.16. I needed to figure a reasonable dial so I got out my iPhone and converted the 7.58 into an 11.92 quarter mile ET.

Even though I hadn't got an 11 sec slip my weekend was already complete. I put an 11.95 on the windows and hoped the 1/8 to 1/4 calculations were close. I caught the guy around 1200' so I lifted. Stupid move cause I lost in a double breakout so now I still don't have a time slip under full acceleration. The 60' slowed even more to a 1.748 but everything else was quicker. My time slip shows an 11.88 at only 112.2 mph. Now that makes my day right there! I'm thinking that coulda been an 11.84 at 114 or so and it was over 85 degrees when that pass was made. I'm thrilled with this for a first time out. As I said before, driving the car back on the trailer was icing on the cake. Now I just need to figure out the shift light issue, finish hooking up the N2O solenoids, fill my bottle and get a new racing jacket and belts and then run a time I'll really be proud of.

[magnum517]

Very cool! Great passes ! Sounds like you have a great combo with a lot more potential to unlock!


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[grabbergreen84]

"Drove back onto the trailer" is a testament to your build. Only problem is the shift light? Not bad. And that doesn't sound like it should be a very difficult problem to chase down.

[7point5inafox]

Very cool! Great passes ! Sounds like you have a great combo with a lot more potential to unlock!

"Drove back onto the trailer" is a testament to your build. Only problem is the shift light? Not bad. And that doesn't sound like it should be a very difficult problem to chase down.

Thanks, I'm getting real stoked on this project now! Even though the major bugs had been sorted out long ago I wasn't expecting to run that well the first time out. I'm not really a persistent tuner. In other words, I'd go to the track w/o any tools and what ever it ran I lived with for the day. It is bracket racing after all. I never go to the track alone so I just borrowed tools from my friends that are actually racers when I needed them. As I read more and more on how a lot of guys have their nitrous engines tuned it only cements my thoughts I was waaaay rich the whole time I was running it before so I'm especially getting geeked up to try it once again. I still need to finish running the wires to the solenoids from the N2O controller. They tap into the ground sides so that is as easy as running 2 black wires about 3' long. That's it for the stuff that doesn't cost me anything, I still need to do something with my bottle. It either needs sent out to be pressure tested and possibly needs a new valve because I had issues getting it fully closed checking for leaks a month ago. If that's the case it may make more sense to buy a new bottle and keep this for a spare. I also need new seat belts and unfortunately a new jacket since I have trouble laying off the ice cream and Mt Dew. My original goals for this car were 10.70's with a 150 shot. I had gained a second from my naturally aspirated pass way back when it ran the 10.95 so I'm thinking that's reasonable enough to keep me focused. Claiming I "accidentally" dipped below an 11 flat doesn't apply that deep in the 10's so I'm going to also need a sfi approved balancer, trans blanket and who knows what else.

As minor as the shift light sounds it has me more than a little concerned so I've avoided even looking at it. I had run a jumper wire from my fog light switch to the shift light so I could check that the bulb worked w/o tearing the dash apart. It lights but that doesn't mean I didn't screw something up in wiring it or that the unit just quit working. I went insane with protecting and wrapping the wiring where all my MSD stuff is so I'm looking forward to none of that. One bright spot is since I wanted to neaten up the wiring under there I hadn't put the wheel liner in. According to my pic there's definitely a rpm chip in there so that shoots down what I was hoping for.

[7point5inafox]

I've had a few moments to mess with the car lately. I put a 3000 rpm chip into my rpm switch to see if I can make the shift light come on and it did. Now I have to wonder if I had my 6000 rpm chip fail? I'll put in a 5800 and see what happens. My other issue was the Innovate air-fuel meter was reading 7.4 constantly. I had mounted the meter under the pass seat so it needed to come out. After some messing around testing wires I found the microscopic ground wire was broken right at the relay. I think I have that fixed that because it went thru all the green light flashing and then staying on steady and the gauge read 22.4 when I tried calibrating it. While the seat was out I decided to finally take the time to scrub it with some fabric cleaner. It's not perfect by any means but I think it turned out real nice.

[wraithracing]

Glad to hear you are having some luck with your electrical issues. I have to say they are one of my least favorite things about cars!

Seats look pretty good IMHO.

[magnum517]

Looks good !!


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[7point5inafox]

Glad to hear you are having some luck with your electrical issues. I have to say they are one of my least favorite things about cars!

Seats look pretty good IMHO.

Looks good !!

Thanks! I'm real pleased with the seat, sure makes the driver side look like real crap now. I'm going for another ignition switch today as that problem still isn't right but we've worked around it. I've checked everything I can think of and every so often it does fire in the crank position so I'm back to blaming it. I made the Innovate air-fuel gauge calibration way more difficult than necessary. I failed to follow step 1 correctly. After fixing the broken wire it read 22.4 all the time so I tear it back apart and look over the instructions again. Made perfect sense that time! End result is my idle is ok, cruise is way rich and maybe a touch lean at WOT so I do have some adjustments to make.

[7point5inafox]

The other day I started to investigate this lack of spark while cranking deal some more. I kinda knew it wasn't going to be the problem but decided to get another ignition switch anyway, it was exactly the same. The next step was plugging the old switch back in and manually sliding it, same deal. At least now I've ruled out the switch along with the key/tumbler/rod assembly. I put the column back together since the problem is obviously not in there. After almost 10 weeks of working on it sporadically I can't even remember what all I've tried. A friend of mine is dead certain it's as simple as the voltage dropping below 12V at the 6AL's small red wire. I'm sure that's one of the things I've checked but it's going to get checked again. Being upside down under that column in humid 90 degree weather has taken all the patience I have for now. If I'm going to pull off my Drag Week trip I'd surely hate not having this fixed. This car couldn't be any easier to start cold but can be finicky sometimes once it's hot. Time's a wasting there, less than 5 weeks! Unfortunately, this was only an update and not a progress report. There's definitely no progress happening here.